In Greek mythology, the wife of Amphiaraus who was bribed with a golden necklace to betray her husband, leading to his death in the Trojan War and becoming a symbol of treachery and greed.
From Greek 'eris' (strife) and 'phyle' (tribe or race), meaning 'tribal strife.' Her story appears in ancient Greek literature as a cautionary tale about the dangers of avarice and infidelity.
Eriphyle's golden necklace—which caused so much suffering—was itself cursed and doomed anyone who owned it, making it an ancient Greek predecessor to modern 'cursed object' stories and showing how the ancients understood that ill-gotten gains bring their own punishment.
Eriphyle is a figure in Greek mythology whose agency is framed through betrayal and manipulation by male desires (her husband Amphiaraus, the god Aphrodite's interests). Her legendary act—giving away her husband's life for a necklace—is narrated as female weakness rather than complex choice under duress.
Reference the mythological narrative while recognizing that ancient texts often portrayed women's constrained agency as character flaw rather than structural coercion.
Eriphyle's story illustrates how women in myth were presented as decision-makers whose choices were simultaneously overwritten by male narrative authority and blamed on female nature.
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